CROWN of THORNS
by irishais
Summary: Within her, there is the tiny fluttering of a heartbeat. She defies all the myths.


C R O W N _of _T H O R N S

_-irishais-_

In the still of two a.m, Rinoa wanders the Garden. Her fingers skim the smooth-painted surface of the railing around the inner courtyard, and when she encounters one of the many pillars, she simply lifts her hand and glides her fingertips along that instead, a graceful arc that lands her hand back on the railing. She has abandoned her slippers back in the hall, just outside the front door-- a sign, really, that she'll be back. For now, she walks, the plain granite path smooth under her toes, an easy transfer to blank white tile in the rotunda. A faculty member inclines their head at her, face obscured, and she regards them as she would a dream creature-- they cannot discipline her. Who would discipline the commander's wife, and what could they do? Give her a detention, a slap on the wrist? Send her back with a curt note to her husband? She was never a cadet, never subject to their rules.

She climbs the stairs slowly, the carpeted tread scruffy under her feet, worn through by an endless parade of boots.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she hears a faint tick-tock-tick-tock, tick-tock of a ticking clock.

Rinoa presses onward (onward, ever onward, said the princess to the knight). Squall usually leaves his office locked, but tonight she finds the light on, the door ajar just a smidge to let in the fresher air. It's one more reason why the Garden faculty would never say anything to her, not even an, "It's dangerous to walk here at night." Her husband sleeps less than she does, buried up to his elbows in mission briefs and contract reports, bids for security, bids for warfare, petitions for money and for armaments.

She's seen the amount of gil some people are willing to pay to start a land war in Centra.

"You should be in bed," he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice, even though his face is pointed toward the computer, sharp white highlights reflecting off of his temple, the bridge of his nose, his chin. There are twin spots of light where the lenses of his glasses sit; they don't suit him, really. He works too much.

The carpet in his office is thick pile, soft and warm against her soles as she crosses to him. "Shouldn't you?" she asks, gently teasing. "It's nearly three."

He glances at the clock at the bottom of his screen and swears quietly, offering up an apology in its wake. "I'm sorry. I'm nearly done."

Rinoa smiles and nods as she seats herself on the sofa by the huge glass windows, resting a hand on the gentle curve of her belly.

"It's alright," she tells him. "Take your time."

She sleeps and dreams of shores and skylines, dark castles and mountains, seeing all of it from above, held gently in a cocoon of...power, she supposes, magic. _Don't fret, precious_, a voice tells her from far above, and she falls away until the pictures are just faded grey ghosts. She sleeps.

It is Squall's hand on her forehead, brushing aside hair that has fluttered astray, that wakes her an hour later.

"Come on. It's not good for you to be sleeping on the couch."

His hand is broad, fingers curving over her shoulder as he eases her up into a sitting position. She doesn't need the aid, but he never listens, and so Rinoa lets him, if it will make Squall feel better. The nausea that she's staved off for an hour or so is back, Rinoa discovers. She slips into Squall's private washroom before they go back downstairs. When it is over, and she can let her hair fall back around her face, Rinoa studies her reflection in the mirror, water droplets running down the contours of her cheekbones. She looks a little paler, a little more weary. The first she attributes to the vile taste left over in her throat, and the second...

Perhaps she is just getting old, but twenty-six isn't so old, is it? She still has four years before her thirties, when Selphie claims everything will start to go. Rinoa isn't sure about believing everything that Selphie says.

"All right?" Squall asks.

She glances to make sure that she's shut the light off, and pulls the door closed behind her. "I'm fine."

He puts his hand at the small of her back as they walk the short distance to the elevator.

_xx_

The pills are there, colored like rainbows in a bottle, and she counts them out as she does daily--four pills for better health, all natural and Kadowaki-approved. There is also a round blue one, like the sky at midday, for the baby. She keeps them in a rectangular plastic case, with the letters marked in stark black on the top: S-M-T-W-T-F-S. They're raised a little, for the blind, the case another one of Kadowaki's freebies. She knows how stressful it can get. "One less thing to worry about," the doctor had said.

Rinoa takes them all in a row, _one, two, three, four, _five. There's room in the sequence for a generous sip of water between each pill, and when she downs the last, Rinoa drains the end of her glass of water. The cup is part of a set, four matching glasses that she got "in case there's company."

She smiles at the memory

_--and in her ears the rush of hard, beating wings. _

Rinoa holds fast to the smooth countertop, and shuts her eyes as she throws up in the sink.

Instead of meeting her for lunch, Squall finds her curled up in the corner of their bed, and her skin feels too warm to his touch.

She goes for a week on fitful sleep, soup and crackers, a nutrient-laden intravenous line that Dr. Kadowaki swears will help. Rinoa dozes, the bag of medicine cold where it's been bound around her upper arm. There's been a skirmish that went wrong somewhere; both Squall and Kadowaki believe that it's better for her to sleep in her own bed, away from bloodied cadets too young to be missing limbs. Squall postpones half a dozen meetings to watch her through the night, and at nine, when the IV bag has run out, he is the one that carefully pulls the needle from her hand.

In her belly, something writhes and kicks, and she hears the tick-tock of that infernal clock in the back of her mind.

_xx_

_don't worry, it will all be over--_

"...Squall?"

He looks up from a stack of files dragged down from his office. "Yeah?"

"Did you say something?"

"No."

Her head falls back against the pillow, and when she rests her hand on her stomach, something pushes back.

_--soon. _


End file.
